TV
Glad as I was to hear of the return of Noel's Christmas Presents, we've actually been enjoying the return of Noel's House Party for years in the shape of Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway. Even Mr. Blobby turned up in the first episode of the series.
As with Noel's show, this is a string of absolutely dire ideas which would fall flat if fronted by almost any other presenter you can think of, as would the rather lame gags. None of that matters in the hands of these two cheeky chappies who seem to revel in the low-rent nature of the ingredients and make the thing gel as a whole through sheer force of personality.
So we happily accept the rubbishy game show strand where you can win the adverts, in itself flawed because on ITV ads are different depending on which part of the country you are in. We somehow find out-of-work soap actors dressed as elves highly amusing and we're even drawn into the matey rivalry between the boys and showbiz pals Max Beesley and Jonny Wilkes. Just what is Jonny famous for exactly? Having famous mates?
I suppose the point is that if you can take a truckload of absolute drivel and somehow make it into a successful entertainment show then you really must have the Midas touch. It's not the sort of telly to dash home to catch, certainly not the sort you'd bust a gut to record, but as a bit of froth before a Saturday night out, it works really well.
It just shouldn't though.
A proper Charlie
Casualty has been going so long now that it wouldn't have been a surprise if old stalwart Charlie Fairhead were to be found in a nursing home – as a resident. No, though he is still to be found scowling and looking indignant in the corridors of Casualty or A&E or ED or whatever they're calling it this season.
The new season opened with yet another Holby bomb blast, Holby being especially prone to bombs. It must be the most dangerous place to live outside of Midsomer. When it started it was most dangerous place outside of Jersey thanks to good old Bergerac. If they ever cast John Nettles in an episode, expect absolute carnage.
To make sure they got top value out of such a big stunt, we actually got the opening episode twice, told from two different perspectives. A nice idea this, and one that was served well by the show's new filmic look, something the show's directors seem to be taking full advantage of. Personally, I prefer the immediacy of the old video look but I suppose I'll get used to it.
The first three episodes have given us the opportunity to meet horrible Doctor Ruth, which we must assume is short for ruthless. Blessed with the bedside manner of an undertaker and the people skills of a traffic warden, this is obviously supposed to be a character we'll love to hate. She hasn't been bitchy or nasty enough for that yet though, just cold. I can remember hating Toyah Battersby when she appeared in Corrie though and being gutted when she left. I suppose we should trust Georgia Taylor to make the character work.
The tension in the third episode lay around the health of little Angel, the offspring of the late Selina and creepy Nathan. As soon as Dixie left a card and a baby cardigan on Nathan's laptop though, this tension evaporated. It was clear from that point on that Angel was doomed and Nathan was destined to close the show in tears.
Clichés still abound in this but despite the fact it remains annoyingly soapy, at least there's still the opportunity to play spot the victim or run a sweepstake as to who Charlie will scowl at first.
PC World
Some people are more than capable of pressing the self-destruct button and I may be wrong but I suspect that it was this rather than for his comedic talents that Jim Davidson was cast in Hell's Kitchen.
Jim seemed painfully aware throughout that he was going to cause great offence at some stage but his final face-off with Brian Dowling was astonishing watch-through-the-fingers car-crash telly. It's hard to tell from edited highlights but it seemed that there were at least two misunderstandings in the row but clearly Jim didn't seem bothered that he'd brought Brian to tears, and whatever his actual intentions may have been, he came across a schoolyard bully. Not nice.
Less nice still was lovely Anneka Rice being brought to tears by a surly and uncommunicative sous chef. It's not that Matt was picking on her though, because when the kitchens were switched around, he seemed to adopt the same approach with Saint Barry. He must be brave. Barry has been a great peacemaker and the voice of reason throughout but make him angry and I'd wager he's as scary as Marco with a rifle.
Seeing what a deadly shot he was, it was probably very foolhardy of Kelly out of Emmerdale to spit out his devilled kidneys in front of millions of witnesses.
To PSB or not to PSB
In a world where people increasingly get their news online rather than from the telly, I suppose the provision of local television news isn't as important as once was, not in the global scheme of things, but it's important to me.
I can remember the days when ATV Today used to provide "local news" for a vast swathe of the country, too big a swathe as it turned out. Being from Birmingham we weren't too badly served but weren't really interested in what was happening in Derby, Leicester and Nottingham and even less so in the happenings of Oxford.
Over the years ITV's local news offering has become more and more regional with the introduction of sub-regions and coverage has subsequently evolved to be more relevant and more compelling. Better still, competition with the BBC means that their service has become more targeted too.
Now we hear that ITV regional services are to be cut back and there must be a fear that this further dumbing down of the station's news output may have a knock-on effect on the BBC too. They also have to make savings thanks to the licence fee.
I love the local news offerings and now that it's possible to choose which one you want to watch on Digital Satellite, it's not uncommon for me to seek out the relevant regional bulletin if a story on the national news catches my interest.
It's a crying shame that this last vestige of the old federal system of ITV is going, but in these days of fractured audiences I suppose it was a financial inevitability.
ITV, once the home of classy stuff like Survival and World In Action, is looking less and less like a public service broadcaster with each passing year. Now we learn that they are to move away from the one-off drama format, which has provided that much needed bit of quality through some difficult years in favour of long-running series.
ITV1 is rapidly becoming chewing gum for the eyes. Thankfully the rich heritage that made the channel in the first place is still available on ITV3. I know which one I prefer at the moment.
Bits n Bobs
Cindy's ghost hangs heavy over EastEnders at the moment, but there's something odder going on. The more Phil Mitchell hits the vodka the more he resembles Barney the Dinosaur.
I'm finding all this nasty David Platt stuff in Coronation Street particularly tiresome but at least it's true to his warped character. Once seriously nasty Becky seems to have turned into some sort of saint. High time she fell off the straight and narrow.
What was longer at your local Northern Rock branch? The queue of concerned savers trying to get their hands on their life savings or the gaggle of television crews waiting to interview them?
As with Noel's show, this is a string of absolutely dire ideas which would fall flat if fronted by almost any other presenter you can think of, as would the rather lame gags. None of that matters in the hands of these two cheeky chappies who seem to revel in the low-rent nature of the ingredients and make the thing gel as a whole through sheer force of personality.
So we happily accept the rubbishy game show strand where you can win the adverts, in itself flawed because on ITV ads are different depending on which part of the country you are in. We somehow find out-of-work soap actors dressed as elves highly amusing and we're even drawn into the matey rivalry between the boys and showbiz pals Max Beesley and Jonny Wilkes. Just what is Jonny famous for exactly? Having famous mates?
I suppose the point is that if you can take a truckload of absolute drivel and somehow make it into a successful entertainment show then you really must have the Midas touch. It's not the sort of telly to dash home to catch, certainly not the sort you'd bust a gut to record, but as a bit of froth before a Saturday night out, it works really well.
It just shouldn't though.
A proper Charlie
Casualty has been going so long now that it wouldn't have been a surprise if old stalwart Charlie Fairhead were to be found in a nursing home – as a resident. No, though he is still to be found scowling and looking indignant in the corridors of Casualty or A&E or ED or whatever they're calling it this season.
The new season opened with yet another Holby bomb blast, Holby being especially prone to bombs. It must be the most dangerous place to live outside of Midsomer. When it started it was most dangerous place outside of Jersey thanks to good old Bergerac. If they ever cast John Nettles in an episode, expect absolute carnage.
To make sure they got top value out of such a big stunt, we actually got the opening episode twice, told from two different perspectives. A nice idea this, and one that was served well by the show's new filmic look, something the show's directors seem to be taking full advantage of. Personally, I prefer the immediacy of the old video look but I suppose I'll get used to it.
The first three episodes have given us the opportunity to meet horrible Doctor Ruth, which we must assume is short for ruthless. Blessed with the bedside manner of an undertaker and the people skills of a traffic warden, this is obviously supposed to be a character we'll love to hate. She hasn't been bitchy or nasty enough for that yet though, just cold. I can remember hating Toyah Battersby when she appeared in Corrie though and being gutted when she left. I suppose we should trust Georgia Taylor to make the character work.
The tension in the third episode lay around the health of little Angel, the offspring of the late Selina and creepy Nathan. As soon as Dixie left a card and a baby cardigan on Nathan's laptop though, this tension evaporated. It was clear from that point on that Angel was doomed and Nathan was destined to close the show in tears.
Clichés still abound in this but despite the fact it remains annoyingly soapy, at least there's still the opportunity to play spot the victim or run a sweepstake as to who Charlie will scowl at first.
PC World
Some people are more than capable of pressing the self-destruct button and I may be wrong but I suspect that it was this rather than for his comedic talents that Jim Davidson was cast in Hell's Kitchen.
Jim seemed painfully aware throughout that he was going to cause great offence at some stage but his final face-off with Brian Dowling was astonishing watch-through-the-fingers car-crash telly. It's hard to tell from edited highlights but it seemed that there were at least two misunderstandings in the row but clearly Jim didn't seem bothered that he'd brought Brian to tears, and whatever his actual intentions may have been, he came across a schoolyard bully. Not nice.
Less nice still was lovely Anneka Rice being brought to tears by a surly and uncommunicative sous chef. It's not that Matt was picking on her though, because when the kitchens were switched around, he seemed to adopt the same approach with Saint Barry. He must be brave. Barry has been a great peacemaker and the voice of reason throughout but make him angry and I'd wager he's as scary as Marco with a rifle.
Seeing what a deadly shot he was, it was probably very foolhardy of Kelly out of Emmerdale to spit out his devilled kidneys in front of millions of witnesses.
To PSB or not to PSB
In a world where people increasingly get their news online rather than from the telly, I suppose the provision of local television news isn't as important as once was, not in the global scheme of things, but it's important to me.
I can remember the days when ATV Today used to provide "local news" for a vast swathe of the country, too big a swathe as it turned out. Being from Birmingham we weren't too badly served but weren't really interested in what was happening in Derby, Leicester and Nottingham and even less so in the happenings of Oxford.
Over the years ITV's local news offering has become more and more regional with the introduction of sub-regions and coverage has subsequently evolved to be more relevant and more compelling. Better still, competition with the BBC means that their service has become more targeted too.
Now we hear that ITV regional services are to be cut back and there must be a fear that this further dumbing down of the station's news output may have a knock-on effect on the BBC too. They also have to make savings thanks to the licence fee.
I love the local news offerings and now that it's possible to choose which one you want to watch on Digital Satellite, it's not uncommon for me to seek out the relevant regional bulletin if a story on the national news catches my interest.
It's a crying shame that this last vestige of the old federal system of ITV is going, but in these days of fractured audiences I suppose it was a financial inevitability.
ITV, once the home of classy stuff like Survival and World In Action, is looking less and less like a public service broadcaster with each passing year. Now we learn that they are to move away from the one-off drama format, which has provided that much needed bit of quality through some difficult years in favour of long-running series.
ITV1 is rapidly becoming chewing gum for the eyes. Thankfully the rich heritage that made the channel in the first place is still available on ITV3. I know which one I prefer at the moment.
Bits n Bobs
Cindy's ghost hangs heavy over EastEnders at the moment, but there's something odder going on. The more Phil Mitchell hits the vodka the more he resembles Barney the Dinosaur.
I'm finding all this nasty David Platt stuff in Coronation Street particularly tiresome but at least it's true to his warped character. Once seriously nasty Becky seems to have turned into some sort of saint. High time she fell off the straight and narrow.
What was longer at your local Northern Rock branch? The queue of concerned savers trying to get their hands on their life savings or the gaggle of television crews waiting to interview them?
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